Today is Easter Sunday. This morning I woke up feeling alone. My bedroom was very dark, but I could hear the birds chirping– and a rooster crowing?– as if the day had already begun without me. I threw on my robe, made myself a cup of coffee and stepped on the scale; ugh, still not where I was hoping to be. I picked out a colorful dress, slipped on a matching pair of shoes and grabbed a set of pearls. Something just felt off. As I stepped out the door, my neighbor was locking up his. (Note: I usually try to avoid my neighbor because he talks and talks and talks and I never get places on time when I run into him. Several times I’ve rounded the corner to my house to see my neighbor pulling in his drive… and I keep on driving because I don’t want to get stuck talking for what seems like hours when I just want to get in the door.) So when I saw my neighbor this morning, a little sigh set in as I realized I wasn’t going to make it to church on time. But then my heart changed as I thought, Easter is not about making the service on time, or at all. Jesus would be more joyful to see me take the time with someone rather than speed through a morning routine just to make it to a sanctuary. So when my neighbor asked me how things were going, I stopped and let him hear about it. Minutes later, I could feel myself making efforts to show him I was going to be late to church as I’m doing a half leg in and half leg out straddle in my car. I stopped myself and stepped back out to finish our conversation (I’ve gotta work on my patience with people). By this time, I was 35 minutes late 🙁 Then I thought, well, I can still catch a service somewhere else. So I did. During the service, a song was playing and people were walking on stage, whiteboards in hand with words of struggles and sins written on them. Another person on stage stood with an eraser and wiped each white board clean. Then the pastor asked the congregation to take out the mini magnetic sketch boards they were given with their bulletins this morning (like little etch a sketchs with plastic sticks to write with). We were to write on those boards a sin or struggle we have. Immediately I knew what had been on my heart; anger. Then communion was handed out and we were to think about that struggle as we took the bread and held the juice. I prayed to Jesus. The night before I was let down immensely and felt a strong anger toward someone… it was an intense anger after this person has let me down time and time again. Oh man, did I pray for God to cleanse my soul. And then it was as if I came back to life and a sense of me woke up from that prayer to feel a trickle of something on my finger. I started to open my eyes and noticed the juice in my hand, which signifies the blood of Jesus, was dripping onto my lap where I had that sketch board with my written sin. My lap was in such a way that the dripping ‘blood’ was literally running down the sketch board and erasing my sin. There was a pool of juice that collected on my bulletin, which was under the sketch board and thankfully protecting my dress. Tears streamed down my face. There was a crack in that cup of juice… something I hadn’t noticed until I was well into my prayer. When the pastor asked the congregation to lift the top sheet of the sketch pad to erase the sin we had written, there was nothing for me to do… my sin had already been erased by the blood of Jesus. It was such a personal illustration to me that God was listening and he was showing me that there was nothing I could do, His son Jesus already washed away my sin. This is probably one of the best Easter Sundays I’ve ever had because I felt God there and suddenly I didn’t feel alone anymore.